Assessing Social Support: The Social Support …

1 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1983, Vol. 44, No. 1, 127-139 Copyright 1983 by the American Psychological Association, Social Support : The Social Support QuestionnaireIrwin G. Sarason, Henry M. Levine, Robert B. Basham, and Barbara R. SarasonUniversity of WashingtonA measure of Social Support , the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ), is described,and four empirical studies employing it are presented. The SSQ yields scores for(a) perceived number of Social supports and (b) satisfaction with Social supportthat is available. Three of the studies deal with the SSQ's psychometric properties,its correlations with measures of personality and adjustment, and the relation ofthe SSQ to positive and negative life changes. The fourth study is an experimentalinvestigation of the relation between Social Support and persistence in workingon a complex, frustrating task.

2 The research reported suggests that the SSQ is areliable instrument and that Social Support is (a) more strongly related to positivethan negative life changes, (b) more related in a negative direction to psychologicaldiscomfort among women than men, and (c) an asset in enabling a person topersist at a task under frustrating conditions. Research and clinical implicationsare in a variety of settings havehighlighted the positive roles played by socialattachments in psychological adjustment andhealth. Psychotherapists try to provide theirclients with the acceptance needed to pursueself-examination. Soldiers develop strongmutually reinforcing ties with each other thatcontribute to their success and survival. Phy-sicians daily note the salutary effects of theirattention and expressed concern on their pa-tients' well-being and recovery from types of observations have led to theidea that Social Support (a) contributes topositive adjustment and personal develop-ment and (b) provides a buffer against theeffects of Support is usually denned as theexistence or availability of people on whomwe can rely, people who let us know that theycare about, value, and love us.

3 Bowlby's the-ory of attachment (1969, 1973, 1980) reliesheavily on this interpretation of Social sup-port. When Social Support , in the form of anattachment figure, is available early in life,Bowlby believes children become self-reliant,learn to function as supports for others, andhave a decreased likelihood of psychopathol-ogy in later life. Bowlby has also concludedThis research was supported by Office of Naval Re-search Contract No. N00014-80-C-0522, NR for reprints should be sent to Irwin G. Sar-ason, Department of Psychology, NI-25, University ofWashington, Seattle, Washington the availability of Social Support bolstersthe capacity to withstand and overcome frus-trations and problem-solving variety of types of evidence seems tosupport this concept of Social Support . Forexample, Miller and Lefcourt have recentlyobtained results consistent with this inter-pretation (Miller & Lefcourt, Note 1, Note2), as did Hirsch (1980).

4 Bronfenbrenner(1961) found that the rated leadership andresponsibility of 16-year-old boys and girlswas related to family interaction adolescents showing the greatest lead-ership and responsibility described their par-ents as being more affectionate and Support -ive than did adolescents low on these char-acteristics. Murphy and Moriarty (1976)found that the availability of family supportsincreased children's resilience in the face ofstress. Sandier (1980) found significant rela-tions between stress and Social Support , onthe one hand, and children?s maladjustments,on the other. In a 30-year longitudinal studyof Harvard University male undergraduates,Vaillant (1974, 1977) found that a supportiveearly family environment was correlated withpositive adult adjustment and lack of psy-chiatric addition to evidence that the availabilityof childhood Social Support is related to per-sonality development and adult behavior pat-terns, there is also evidence of the detrimentaleffects of lack of Support in adults.

5 De Araujo127128 SARASON, LEVINE, BASHAM, AND SARASONand associates (De Araujo, Dudley, & VanArsdel, 1972; De Araujo, Van Arsdel, Holmes,& Dudley, 1973) reported that asthmatic pa-tients with good Social supports requiredlower levels of medication to produce clinicalimprovement than did asthmatics with poorsocial supports. There is much evidence thatmedical and surgical patients benefit fromattention and expressions of friendliness byphysicians and nurses (Auerbach & Kilmann,1977). Nuckolls, Cassel, and Kaplan (1972)studied lower-middle-class pregnant womenliving in an overseas military authors studied two factors of specialinterest: recent stressful life events and psy-chosocial assets, a major component of whichwas denned as the availability of Social sup-ports. Neither life changes nor psychosocialassets alone correlated significantly withcomplications of pregnancy.

6 However, womenhigh in life changes and low in psychosocialassets had many more birth complicationsthan any other group. Sosa, Kennell, Klaus,Robertson, and Urrutia (1980) found that thepresence of a supportive person had a favor-able effect on length of labor and on mother-infant interaction after (1978) reported that the occurrenceof stressful life events is associated with morepsychiatric disorder among those living aloneor unmarried than those living with othersor married. Andrews, Tennant, Hewson, andSchonell (1978) found that the combinationof recent stressful life events, low level of so-cial Support , and adverse childhood experi-ences successfully predicted the occurrenceof maladjustment in adults. There is evidencethat depressives tend to report the lack ofavailability of supportive others (Winefield,1979).

7 Henderson (1980) concluded that adeficiency in Social bonds may, independentof other factors, be a cause of some forms ofbehavioral as an emphasis on the impor-tance of Social Support appears to be, the taskof empirically demonstrating the effects ofsocial Support has barely begun. One of thebarriers to objective research has been thelack of a reliable, general, and convenient in-dex of Social Support . Miller, Ingham, andDavidson (1976) and Miller and Ingham(1976) simply determined who their subjects'confidants and acquaintances were. Medalieand Goldbourt (1976) focused their attentionon the availability of helpful others in copingwith certain work, family, and financial prob-lems. Brim (1974) devised a 13-item scaleintended to measure certain aspects of socialsupport, particularly value similarity.

8 Lubor-sky, Todd, and Katcher (1973) developed aself-administered Social Assets Scale in-tended to weigh both interpersonal assets andliabilities. Renne's Social Health Index (1974)was directed particularly toward the individ-ual's level of functioning in the communityand yields measures of employability, maritalsatisfaction, community involvement, andsociability. A measure devised by Barrera,Sandier, and Ramsay (1981) assessed the fre-quency with which people are recipients ofsupportive actions. A comprehensive butcomplex vehicle for measuring Social supportis one developed by Henderson (1980).. His50-question structured interview assesses (a)perceived availability and adequacy of peoplewho can be counted on for assistance in prob-lem solving and emotional Support and (b) Social integration, its availability and diversity of measures of Social supportis matched by the diversity of conceptualiza-tions concerning its ingredients.

9 Weiss (1974)discussed six dimensions of Social Support :intimacy, Social integration, nurturance,worth, alliance, and guidance. Convenientoperationalization of these dimensions hasnot yet occurred. Kelly, Munoz, and Snow-den (1979) delineated three types of socialsupport: personal, intraorganizational, andextraorganizational. According to Caplan'stheory (1974), Social Support implies an en-during pattern of continuous or intermittentties that play a significant part in maintainingthe psychological and physical integrity of theindividual over time. For Caplan, a socialnetwork provides a person with "psychoso-cial supplies" for the maintenance of mentaland emotional more empirically derived evidenceis needed to provide a basis for theoreticaladvances in the area of Social Support (Heller,1979).

10 Regardless of how it is conceptualized, Social Support would seem to have two basicelements: (a) the perception that there is asufficient number of available others to whomone can turn in times of need and (b) a degreeASSESSING Social SUPPORT129of satisfaction with the available two factors in Social Support may varyin their relation to one another, dependingon the individual's personality. Some peoplemay think that only a large number of avail-able helpers provides sufficient possibilitiesof Social Support . Others may consider thateven one person is adequate. How gregariouspeople are and how comfortable they feelwith others may determine the number ofsupports they believe necessary. In the sameway, satisfaction with the Support perceivedto be available may be influenced by person-ality factors such as self-esteem and a feelingof control over the environment.